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Sienna tore her gaze away and spotted a stop approaching. Without thinking twice she signaled the driver to pull over. It hadn’t been her intended stop, but she couldn’t sit idle knowing the poor and possibly sick man so close to her was quite literally on death’s door. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Fenn hated the holiday season. He always had. There were so many people, everywhere. It would have been impossible not to rub shoulders with someone just by trying to walk across a street if it weren’t for his magic. There was something about this time of year that brought people out in droves. The commercializing of every conceivable religious occasion didn’t help, but it was more than that. Like there was something in the damn air.
A saccharine giggle drifted his way, preceding swinging white-blonde hair obscuring his vision and eyes as blue as a spring sky that sparkled up at him. Florence was beautiful, by nearly every standard, yet the sight of her filled Fenn with nothing but annoyance. Of course, she remained willfully oblivious to his disdain. “You don’t really have to mingle with them, do you?”
“This is hardly mingling.”
“Hmm.” She straightened and plopped herself next to him, just shy of touching. He fought not to flinch. “What do you call this, then?”
Temptation.He was never more tempted to abuse his power—the one he’d been born with or the supernatural one he’d been gifted upon his death—than he was when she planted herself beside him. For so long he’d craved companionship that wouldn’t run away or despise him. Perhaps Florence was the universe’s way of laughing at him for daring to even dream.
Fenn let the urge roll over him and released a breath. “I’m working. What do you want?” Maybe if he just engaged her a bit in conversation now, she would disappear that much faster.
Florence swung her legs out, like a child, careless of the people she nearly kicked in the process. She only laughed airily at the glares and cut-off curse sent back at her in response. “I was feeling lonely, so I thought I’d come find you. Maybe we can keep each other company for a while.” She turned, tucking her half-exposed legs beneath the bench, and leaned forward almost like she’d forgotten not to touch him. “Wouldn’t that be fun, Fenn?”
He clenched his hands into fists.Control.If death had taught him anything, it was that. But damn if this beast in the shape of a woman didn’t challenge him in the worst way. “I’m better by myself.” Would it be irresponsible to cause a small, tragic car accident just for an excuse to escape her?Yes.Not that there was anyone to hold him accountable.
Florence pouted and reached up, pulling her hair over her shoulder as if trying to make herself more alluring. “Why do you always push me away? I just want to be closer to you. I’ve never met anyone so mysterious.” She looked him over blatantly. “You’re so much more handsome than—“
Fenn shoved to his feet. “Find someone else, Florence. I have no interest in your company.” He didn’t wait to hear the latest rendition of her opposites attract speech before striding into the crowd, letting the magic of the void help him slip between passersby. His priority remained as it had always been. Distance.
Only when he could no longer taste the unpleasant burn of her healing energy on the back of his tongue did Fenn slow his pace and allow himself to take stock.
Something had drawn him to this city. He’d been there for nearly two days already, plucking the dead and dying from their mortal cages as he moved through the urban overgrowth in search of the answer. He didn’t see or sense any clear sign of something categorically ominous, something that might call to the spirit of Death. That made him think it had to be something else.
He sincerely hoped it didn’t have anything to do with that damn coffee shop. If she was meddling again…. Well, supposedly it was against the rules for him to intervene there, so he’d just have to be satisfied with pissing her off.
Fenn put the nagging concern out of his head when he spotted his next victim.
A man in his mid-forties, wearing a wrinkled button-up under an older winter coat. He looked healthy enough on the outside, by all accounts, but his heart was struggling. From what Fenn could see, the man’s arm had been bothering him a while, and like so many others, he’d popped some pills and dismissed the sign. Too bad. Treatment at the onset might have gotten him through the holiday.
Fenn watched the man disappear into a restaurant, released a breath, and followed. By default, he was invisible and otherwise undetectable to the humans around him, so it was no effort to slip through the nearest wall and take the short way to his target. The patrons of this middle-class steakhouse were about to have a dramatic evening.
Fenn watched from a small distance as his target claimed a seat at a moderately sized table, already occupied by a lone female. He couldn’t hear their words over the restaurant’s din, but visually, the two were a complete mismatch. Whereas the soon-to-be-dead man was somewhat rumpled, already sweating, and pudgy around the middle, his date was … captivating.
She sat back in her chair, the stiffness in her shoulders and furrow in her brow screaming discomfort even before she shook her head. Her head full of thick, dark brown hair that was highlighted with festive shades of red and green. She was visibly younger than the man she appeared to have been waiting on, and he easily confirmed as much. The woman was a youthful twenty-nine, compared to the man’s forty-three. Fenn couldn’t see her eyes from his position, but he watched her purse her lips and drum her fingers over the table. Her companion said something glaringly desperate and she responded by pushing to her feet and reaching for the coat draped over the chair beside her.
The man made to stand, simultaneously reaching out for her, and his heart stuttered.
Fenn snapped his focus back into place. Unexpectedly attractive woman or not, it was time to work. He moved forward, waiting until he was past any obtrusions before allowing himself to become visible. Most would only notice him in their periphery, but it didn’t matter.
Already the man had grabbed at his chest, finally acknowledging the pain, and dropped to his knees. Surely Fenn had been drawn to this city to do more than personally transition a few heart attack victims, but once again, that was the task before him. He reached out, ignored someone’s shout about emergency services, and laid his fingertips over the back of the man’s hand.
The forty-three-year-old looked up at him with fading eyes.
“Rest now,” Fenn said as the soul slipped free. As it was designed to, the void immediately engulfed it, absorbing the individual soul to reintegrate it into the life cycle. Fenn stepped back, allowing the corpse to fall to the side, with the intention of vanishing from the restaurant entirely.
He realized too late he shouldn’t have been ignoring the panicked shuffling around him when something closed around his forearm at the moment he started to move. Lithe fingers slid down his sleeve until something warm and utterly foreign rested on the sliver of skin at his wrist, between glove and sleeve. Something like skin.
Fenn froze, staring into the wide, startled hazel eyes of the woman who’d enthralled him moments before. Her skin rested directly on his and yet she hadn’t died. Hadn’t even recoiled in agony.
Her grip tightened, her expression becoming desperate. “Who are you?”
Visions of Death
Maybeitwasbecauseshe hadn’t been excited about Mr. Thursday, but the fact that Eddie was more than ten minutes late had Sienna uncharacteristically agitated. Everyone had told her to cancel this date. Maybe she should have listened. She glanced again at her phone, checking the time, and sighed heavily. Nearly fifteen minutes. She was done as soon as it hit twenty.
The thought was barely finished when a middle-aged man rushed up to her table, sweating and pasty looking, sputtering apologies. He had a receding hairline, a dad bod pudge, his button-up was wrinkled, and yet his face was vaguely familiar. She put it together in an instant and had to literally bite her tongue. He wasclearlynot the way he portrayed himself in his profile. Still, she waited until he’d fully settled in the seat opposite her before frowning at him and asking, “Eddie?”
